It may be cliché to say that education is a cornerstone of Israel’s economy and security and the keystone for our future. But what makes any cliché a cliché is that it’s true. The fundamental problem with education in Israel today is that we’re educating our kids for the 21st century in a system built in 1948. Fixing this doesn’t require “reform” – it requires tearing down what’s broken and rebuilding it the right way from the ground up. This is certainly beyond the capability of a government like this one that once even simply shut down the Knesset Education Committee for weeks and weeks for petty political reasons. But with a real plan like the one that Naftali Bennett has shaped with leading experts in the field over the past two years, it is possible.

Our kids’ success begins in early childhood education. Here, we not only need to uphold higher standards: today, 75% of toddlers are in unregulated frameworks. We also need to ensure access and affordability, especially for working families and families of those who serve. They should be first in line to receive subsidies – not families where the parents neither work nor enlist.

As a former administrator of Jerusalem’s schools, I know better than anyone that the Education Ministry bureaucracy is broken. Too many decisions are made by bureaucrats with no connection to what’s going on in schools and communities. This must change. The Education Ministry needs to be a fiercer regulator, closely ensuring standards are met, particularly when it comes to the teaching of core subjects in........

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